


all that is left is her

by elmshore



Series: Wayhaven Week 2020 [1]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: A little bit of angst, F/M, Fluff, Other, but it's mostly just fluff, i just wanted some soft mason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:53:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25224190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmshore/pseuds/elmshore
Summary: Cordelia makes a little request of Mason and, in return, Mason learns a little more about the Detective who has wormed her way into his heart.
Relationships: Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles), Female Detective/Mason (The Wayhaven Chronicles)
Series: Wayhaven Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1827454
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	all that is left is her

Mason wakes to the sound of music, a lilting melody drifting into the quiet bedroom.

He is on his stomach, arms wrapped around a pillow he has no memory of grabbing, and the blanket kicked down, resting at his waist. More importantly, however, he is alone.

Cordelia is gone, her spot empty and cold and he frowns. Reaches for it only to stop himself and with a groan, rolls over, onto his back, eyes trailing upward.

The room is _almost_ completely dark, save for the soft, green-white glow of the stars and planets she keeps plastered all over her ceiling. Mason recalls teasing her about them the first time he slept in her room, and how they had bothered him at first, but they are a familiar sight now — like so much else, familiar to him in ways he never could have imagined before.

Even from his spot in the bed, he can hear her — the steady cadence of her heart, a rhythm he knows better than his own by this point, and her gentle humming, accompanying the music.

It is almost enough to lull him back to sleep, the sounds of her, but instead he sits up. Throws his legs over the side of the bed, plants his feet in the soft carpet, and stretches. Lifts his arms and twists, until the bones in his back pop, and then he stands. Eyes scan the room before he finds his clothes folded in a nearby chair and he grabs the pair of black sweatpants he’d worn the night before.

Mason doesn’t usually wear sweatpants, but he thinks he’d wear them everyday if it meant seeing Cordelia’s reaction — how she tries, and fails, not to stare at the way they hang on his hips, heart fluttering in her chest like a hummingbird and cheeks stained that wonderful shade of pink.

Really, even after all this time, she’s still so easy to fluster and he loves it. 

He crosses the room in five steps — pauses to grab his phone and then remembers that it’s in his jacket pocket, which is on her couch, where he left it the night before — and opens the door. Steps out into the hallway and the music is louder now. Not enough to make him uncomfortable, but enough that he can’t quite block it out. It’s some piano piece, nothing he recognizes.

Her apartment is bathed in soft, warm light. Cordelia changed all of the bulbs to a soft white, except for her bedroom, where she chose to remove overhead lights entirely. Instead, she put up strands of what she called ‘fairy lights’ (a name that still makes him scoff) and a small lamp on her bedside table. It’s not something she’s ever said anything about — just like she’s never commented on the blackout curtains now hanging all over the apartment, save for the small window in the kitchen — but he knows he is the reason for the changes.

If he thinks about it, allows it to sit in his mind, he still reels from the knowledge. The fact that she would do these things for _him_. No ulterior motive, no seeking praise or trying to leverage it against him, just the actions of her own kindness.

 _I want you to be comfortable here_.

Those words come back to him now, spoken in her voice, and Mason feels his heart stutter in his chest. An emotion, one he is still trying to come to terms with, coils in his chest and squeezes. 

He wishes he could thank her, that he could say the words that always rise in his throat but turn to ash on his tongue, becoming a tangle anytime he tries to force them out. He’s sure she knows, though — she’s got a way of understanding him, even when he doesn’t understand himself.

Something soft and silky rubs against his leg and he looks down, brow rising. Amber eyes stare up at him and then a trilling meow fills the hallway, as the large cat weaves it’s way between his legs. Mason sighs, leans down, and scoops the cat into his arms. Galileo settles into his hold happily and he pushes forward, feet carrying him round the corner and into the living room.

Both the music and Cordelia are in the kitchen, so that’s where he heads.

“Alright, ride’s over,” he says, depositing Galileo onto the couch as he passes by. Lingers long enough to give the cat a good scritch on the chin, the action netting him a deep purr, and then he’s moving once more, finishing his trek. Makes it to the doorway of the kitchen and has to stop, breath nearly leaving him at the sight.

Cordelia is leaning against the sink, back to the window and a mug of tea in hand — Earl Grey with a hint of lemon, her go-to — and dressed in one of his shirts. It is far too big on her shorter, and smaller, form. Hangs down to her thighs, sleeves rolled up to the elbow and tucked in so they’ll stay in place. Those glorious legs are bare and he wonders, briefly, if she’s wearing anything else beneath that shirt. Drags his tongue across his bottom lip at the thought.

Her head is bowed, eyes glued to the phone in her hand, and from this angle the sun seems to be rising behind her. It casts a warm glow around her and sets her hair aflame, red locks hanging in loose waves down her back, and he’s no poet, doesn’t have the same skill with words that Nat has, but in this moment, he thinks she looks like something divine.

Like something more than he deserves. 

Mason shoves that thought away. Kicks it back into the box it crawled out of and tosses it into one of the many dark corners of his mind, leaving it to rot. Combs a hand through his hair, grateful that the chill of the kitchen is dulled by her presence — everything is softer when she’s around, the world falling away until it is just _Cordelia_ — and takes a step forward. Keen eyes spy the black cord attached to the phone and running up, stopping at the buds in her ears.

Well, that explains why she hasn’t noticed him yet.

Two more steps and she finally spots him, head snapping up, hazel eyes shining in the light, warming at the sight of him. She smiles, bright and open, and his heart does a weird little flip-flop in his chest. Stranger still, he feels himself returning the expression and groans internally — Farah is right, she’s _definitely_ having an effect on him.

She tugs the earbuds out, one at a time, and then sets the phone on the counter behind her. The music is clearer now, but with her so close, it doesn’t grate on his nerves. Not even when he moves closer, stopping inches from her, hands at her hips, leans down, and captures her lips with his own.

Cordelia returns the kiss eagerly, but he pulls away before it can go too far and the way she huffs, cheeks flushed, is worth the self-restraint. But then she’s smiling again and that emotion is back, coiling around his heart.

“Hey there, sleepy head,” she says, her free hand moving to curl around his bicep, and the touch is a welcome one.

“You’re up early,” he notes, glancing toward the cat-shaped clock she keeps on the wall, it’s hands reading 6:45 a.m.

Mason still hates that damn clock, with it’s creepy eyes and menacing grin.

He recalls hearing her say she was off today, when she asked him if he wanted to stay the night before. “Everything alright?” He asks, gray eyes flicking back to her. From the way she seems at ease, body relaxed and eyes clear, he doubts it was a nightmare that drove her from bed.

“Oh! Yeah, everything’s good,” she says, taking another sip of her tea. “I just haven’t had a day off in ages so, I guess my internal clock failed to get the memo about sleeping in.” She shifts, twisting a bit so she can set the tea on the counter, and then looks back up at him. “Did I wake you up? I wasn’t sure if the headphones would still be too loud.”

“No, you didn’t.” He doesn’t say that yeah, he could hear the music loud and clear in the bedroom. Knows that it was not the music that woke him. No, it was the absence of her. The lack of her warmth and the evenness of her breathing.

Maybe one day, he will be able to tell her that, but that day is not today.

She hums, opting not to press the matter, and tips forward. Wraps her arms around his middle and leans into him, chin resting against his sternum as she gazes up at him through long lashes.

“Well, either way, I’m glad you’re up,” she murmurs and the words send a strange little flutter through him, one he tries desperately to ignore.

Instead, he tucks his arms around her and holds her. Breathes in the scent of her — lavender and honey and just a hint of citrus — and lets it fill him, lets it calm his senses until they are no longer fraying at the edge, until the world around him no longer threatens to overwhelm him. Lowers his head and drops a kiss atop hers.

“I am to please, sweetheart.”

She laughs and he thinks, in a quiet voice near the back of his mind, that it’s a sound better than any music. Feels her pull back, hands on his chest, and lets the touch seep into him. Likes the way her fingers trace the pattern of freckles there, connecting each one like it’s a constellation — she’d likened them to stars once, the freckles, and the memory makes him chuckle.

“Can you stay? Or, do you have important vampire business to attend to?”

He snorts. “No,” he says, hands back at her hips, lips curving into a grin. “No important vampire business today. We only do that on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sometimes Saturdays if Ava gets in a mood.” Her laugh is brighter this time and he likes that he can be the one to cause it, likes the ease that has settled over them and their interactions now.

“Good, because I have a very important request for you,” she says and slides past him, tucks her hand into his, and tugs him after her. He follows and allows her to turn him around, so they are facing. She slides her arms around his neck and steps closer. “Dance with me.”

The request catches him off guard and he cocks his head. “I’m not really a dancer, sweetheart.”

“Come on, just for a little bit?” She urges and there is something in her tone that compels him to agree, even as his mind fights against it. “I promise, I won’t tell the others that the big, bad Mason danced.”

“Oh, you can tell them, sweetheart,” he says, arms looping around her waist as he gives in, heart winning over mind. “But they’ll never believe you.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she sighs, but the smile is there and when she begins swaying, he does his best to copy her.

He wasn’t lying, he’s never been much of a dancer — or, at least, not that he can remember. It always seemed like a waste of time, especially when there’s plenty of _other_ things he’d prefer to do with someone, but as seems to be the case with Cordelia, this is yet another exception he finds himself making for her.

Mason really hopes Farah never finds out about this — the other vampire would never let him hear the end of it.

Still, out of all the dancing she could ask him to do, he supposes this is the easiest. She sways gently to the music playing on her phone and he follows her lead and though he will never admit it aloud, it is kind of nice.

He tugs her closer and when she rests her head against his chest, right above his heart, he feels something inside of him relax. Click into place and settle, putting down roots, here now to stay.

They continue like this for maybe ten minutes, the song changing to yet another instrumental piece — this one composed of violin and piano — before she speaks. “You know, I’ve never told anyone this, but you four weren’t the first vampires I ever met.”

He slows, movements faltering, and stares down at her. “What?”

“I met two vampires, actually, prior to meeting you and the others,” she clarifies, so casually as if she were discussing the weather. “One of them was my nanny, in fact.”

Mason can feel his mind trying to wrap itself around the words or, rather, the meaning behind them. “Wait, so why did your mom act like it was some big reveal to you? Or tell us to keep it quiet?”

“Oh, because she doesn’t know.”

“Okay, I’m going to need you to backup, sweetheart, and provide a little more info.”

Cordelia leans back, arms still around his neck, and smiles. “Sure, but only if we can keep dancing.”

He rolls his eyes, but allows his motions to resume, and watches as she chews her lip. Turns the words over in her mind before she lets out a quiet breath and starts.

“I guess I should clarify that, before the incident, I had no idea my nanny was a vampire when I first met her,” she says, chuckles and adds, “Mom probably knew, of course, but she’s never found out that I know.”

“And how did you find out?”

“I was eight, I think,” she hesitates, cocks her head, and then nods. “Yes, eight. My nanny, Eleanor Cromwell, took me to the park. Don’t really remember too much that happened at first, I know Tina was there for a bit, and that it was a really sunny day, probably mid-April?” She goes silent and he feels one of her fingers tap against his back, as if parsing out the words. “What I can remember is that I fell, scraped my knee bad enough to bleed, and then suddenly, there was a man.”

A chill creeps down his spine, mind immediately jumping to all the places this tale could go. He knows firsthand just how enticing her blood can be and he also knows, with no small degree of experience, how incapable some vampires are at resisting even normal blood. How the smell of it can drive them into a frenzy, where all they know is the thirst and the drive to sate it.

“He was so normal looking, so absolutely plain that if you saw him in a crowd, your eyes might slide right off him,” she continues, seemingly unaware of his shift in mood. “He helped me up, kept asking if I was alright and if I was alone, all the standard red flag questions,” she chuckles, but the sound is distant, a faraway look in her eyes. “Never got the chance to answer, because suddenly Eleanor was there. She was a tiny woman, very prim and always polite, but her voice when she told him she would handle it, well, I don’t think even Ava would argue with her.”

“I don’t know, Ava seems keen on arguing with just about anybody.”

“True,” she laughs and then shakes her head, wetting her lips. “Anyway, she swept me up and away. I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Tina before I was bundled into the car and we were on our way home.”

“How’d you know he was a vampire, then?”

“He followed us home.”

Mason feels a snarl rising in the back of his throat, but he swallows it down and merely tightens his hold on her.

She glances up at him and he sees the understanding in her gaze. Fuck, but she reads him too well — he might as well be an open book, at this point — but in typical Cordelia fashion, she doesn’t call him out on it. Simply keeps talking, tone even and light.

“I woke up, it was exactly 5:23 a.m., for some reason I remember that clearly. You know that feeling, when you just _know_ that someone is watching you?” He nods and she returns it, another finger tapping against his back. “That’s what woke me up. And he was there, standing in the corner of my room, as if he belonged there. His eyes looked like they were glowing, two gold beacons in the dark, but I’m pretty sure it was just the light from outside.”

He can hear the waver in her voice then and he shifts, one foot then the other, turns them in a lazy circle, and says, “You don’t have to keep going, if you don’t want to.”

But she simply shakes her head and when she speaks again, it is stronger, if only by a bit. “No, it’s fine,” she says and looks off, eyes distant again. “I don’t mind talking about it, if you’re listening.” 

Mason doesn’t know what to say to that, how to respond to the weight of trust in those words, and so he merely nods, silent.

She takes it as a signal to continue. “As you might imagine, I did what any sensible child would do upon waking to find some creepy man in their room,” she pauses, as if for some type of dramatic effect, and then says, “I screamed as loud as I could. Tumbled out of bed with none of the grace my ballet teachers instilled in me and managed to knock the lamp off my table along the way. Naturally, when I landed on the floor, it was right on top of the shattered pieces.”

Cordelia pulls an arm back and holds her hand up. “You can barely see it now, but there’s a scar — right along there,” she uses her index finger to point at the spot between it and her thumb, “where a shard of the lamp dug right in. Made a bloody mess of my hand.” She returns the arm to its former place around his neck. “Pretty sure that’s what made him move. He’d been so still, like he wasn’t even breathing, but then I cut my hand and it was like he came to life.”

“Your blood tends to have that effect on some people,” Mason mutters dryly and she lets out a sharp puff of breath.

“In hindsight, it does put a lot of what happened that night into perspective, yes.”

Distantly, he is aware of the song changing once more and so he spins them again, slowly, keeping the movements gentle.

“The rest is sort of a blur? I know he leapt at me — was on top of me, actually, and then he wasn’t,” she says, frowning now. “I don’t know when Eleanor came in, all I know is suddenly she was there and he was on the other side of the room. She told me not to look, to close my eyes as tight as I could, and so I did and then I heard — ” her voice skids to a stop and she swallows, hard. He can hear her heart quickening in her chest. “He screamed, a guttural sound, like a dying animal, and then it stopped. As quickly as it all happened, it was over and when I dared to look, he was on the floor. His head was a ways off.”

Mason has no idea who Eleanor is, but he feels a growing respect for her.

Cordelia shivers and he presses his hands into the lower part of her back and pulls her flush against him. Hears her whisper a small thank-you and grunts in response. She is silent for a long moment and he lets it settle between them.

“Eleanor saw to my wounds, cleaned me up, and then bundled me into Mom’s bed,” she says and he can hear the smile in her words. “I used to sneak in there and sleep sometimes, so she knew it was a place I’d feel safe. And it worked. She fixed me a cup of hot chocolate, tucked me into my mom’s bed, and I went to sleep.”

“Just like that?”

“I was eight, and in shock,” she says, shrugging. “The next morning, you’d never be able to tell anything happened — I don’t know how she did it, or what favors she likely called in, but there wasn’t a drop of blood or single sign of struggle left. The body was gone, I had a new bed, and even my lamp had been replaced.”

“She sounds like some sort of supernatural Mary Poppins.”

Cordelia stops dead and pulls back, brows high, and says, “I’m sorry, was that a pop culture reference?”

“Farah made us watch the damn movie a while back,” he growls and shakes his head, eyes narrowing. “She wouldn’t stop singing that one song for a week.”

“Which song?”

He catches the glint in her eye and frowns. “Nice try, sweetheart, but I’m not falling for that trick again.”

“Mason! I would _never_ trick you,” she claims, but by the way her lips twitch, he knows better.

“Don’t think I’ve forgotten that time when you got her into those fucking Disney movies,” he groans, the songs already echoing in his mind, each one sung in Farah’s annoying voice. “She _still_ makes those stupid ‘let it go’ references all the time.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but whenever I hear that someone has yet to experience the Disney magic, I simply cannot sit by and allow that injustice to stand.”

“Pretty sure you could have, this one time.”

“Uh huh,” she says, leans closer, and smirks. “Don’t think I missed the way you got really into _The Lion King_ , mister.”

He scoffs and leans down to meet her, foreheads bumping together. “Might want to get those pretty eyes checked, sweetheart.”

Quick as lightning, she surges up and plants a kiss on his nose. “Nope, my eyes are perfectly fine. I’m glad you think they’re pretty though.”

Mason gives her side a little pinch that makes her squeak and shakes his head. Rounds back to the original topic and says, “So, you never told anyone about that night?”

“Nope. Eleanor asked me not to, said it would be our little secret, and that there was no need to worry Mom over it.” She tilts her head back, blinks up at the ceiling, and sighs. “I guess I was worried that if I did, Eleanor would have to leave. By that point, she was more like a mother to me than my own, and I didn’t want to lose her.”

“Still, seems kind of a fucked up thing, asking a kid to keep that secret.”

“Maybe. At the time, it made sense to me, I don’t know, kid logic, I guess?” She shrugs, dips her head back down, and smiles. “After a while, it just became normal, not talking about it. Like it was a part of me, just one I didn’t share with the world.”

He gets that. There’s a lot he doesn’t remember about himself, but there’s plenty more that he does and keeps locked away. A part of himself, off limits to the world.

“I had nightmares, of course,” she continues, words brittle. “Until I was around fourteen, I’d wake up and swear he was there, in that corner, watching me. But they faded as I got older, I compartmentalized and moved on.”

“And Eleanor?”

“She left, soon as I was old enough to start attending boarding schools, or well, old enough that Mom felt comfortable sending me.”

A question tugs at him, pokes and prods until finally, he asks, “Why were you so calm then, when you found out about us?”

It’s something he’s wondered ever since the reveal. Sure, her easy acceptance had been useful — better to deal with curiosity than fear — but now, knowing this, well it casts that whole situation in a new light.

“When I hit my late teens, I got really into the supernatural. I think it might have been me trying to deal, or cope, with the trauma? I never really dealt with it, not properly,” she says, clicking her tongue, and shrugs. “I just sort of locked it away in a little box and shoved it into the back of my brain, so I guess I was trying to understand. Thought maybe if I understood what I’d seen, then there would be no reason to fear it.”

“Did it work?”

“Sort of. I know now how uh, _inaccurate_ , a lot of my sources were,” she teases and he hums, recalling all too well some of the wild questions she posed in the early days of the truth coming out. “But, it did help me come to grips with what I’d seen, and helped me categorize it. Put a label on something and suddenly, it’s not an unknown, and it’s a little less scary. By the time I met you and the others, I already knew this whole other world existed, I just didn’t know the full scope. And well, you guys weren’t exactly subtle about it.”

Can’t argue with that. “Still doesn’t answer the question though.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No, I mean, why did you trust _us_?”

“Because I’d worked with you all, up to that point. I knew you, enough that I knew I could trust you.”

She sounds so very sure, so convinced of her words, and Mason has to tear his eyes away from her, fixing them on the wall behind her. Fingers brush against his cheek and when her hand cups his face, he leans into it, eyes closing of their own accord.

“And you’ve never given me a reason not to trust you.”

The words, so simple, hit him hard. Slam right into his chest and for just a moment, he swears his heart stops. Then it is pounding and he looks at her, at the emotion in those eyes. Feels the weight behind that statement, the unspoken words between each spoken one, and his head is swimming, the air stolen from his lungs. This is all still so new to him, foreign and unknown, and he doesn’t know how to handle it.

So, he kisses her. That, at least, is something he knows.

She leans into it, hand sliding down and around, to the back of his neck, nails ghosting along the skin in a way that sends shivers through him. For a few glorious seconds, everything else falls away and all that is left is her, Cordelia. She seeps into each and every sense, fills the nooks and crannies that have long sat hollow, and makes a home inside of him.

When she breaks the kiss, she smiles and begins to sway once more. He follows her, thinks that he will always follow her, and lets the music fill the space where words might go. Nothing else needs be said, not when everything and more is present in her eyes.

And Mason hopes, in his own silent way, that she can see the same thing in his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a fandom event over on tumblr, but I'm proud of myself for actually finishing all seven and, so, I'll be posting them all here. This is the first of the seven (none of them are connected), and the prompt was 'dawn' and I kind of used it? Very loosely, oops. 
> 
> Anyway, I know Mason is probably wildly ooc here but, I wanted some fluff and this is what happened.


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